Configuring VVols with HPE Nimble Storage

This post will walk through the setup of VMware Virtual Volumes (VVols) with HPE Nimble Storage. The post was originally published in September 2016 and has subsequently been brought up to date, the process remains largely the same and in this example we will use the vSphere 6.7 HTML5 client and Nimble software version 5.0.4. The terminology and features of Virtual Volumes are detailed in KB 2113013 (Understanding Virtual Volumes (VVols) in VMware vSphere 6.7).

Nimble VVol Components

Nimble software includes the vStorage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA) provider and the PE (Protocol Endpoint) built into the operating system. This means that the VASA provider and Protocol Endpoint run natively from the controller, so there is no additional installation or configuration required. This design also benefits from the highly available setup of Nimble controllers.

Virtual machines are provisioned based on the VMware Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM) framework which uses the…